Nintendo never ceases to amaze. On Wednesday, Southwest Airlines and Nintendo teamed up to give people headed to San Diego for San Diego Comic-Con free Nintendo Switches and copies of Super Mario Maker 2.
Onboard the flights were camera crews and flight attendants with Super Mario Maker hard hats. Pictures are spreading across social media of people onboard a Southwest flight holding up tickets to redeem for free Nintendo hardware.
One of my favorite @SouthwestAir moments ever – everyone on board holding up their tickets for a new #Nintendo switch! Thanks @NintendoAmerica for such a fun flight!!! #SouthwestxNintendo #SuperMarioMaker2 #SouthwestHeart #ad pic.twitter.com/Ikm6DYaLYe
— Britni Vigil (@PlayPartyPlan) July 17, 2019
How does Nintendo pull this stuff off? Could you imagine Microsft or Sony doing such a thing? When was the last time Bethesda just handed out hundreds of free copies of The Elder Scrolls or Wolfenstein? This is now a big addition to a series of uncharacteristically good business decisions by Nintendo since the release of the Switch. These types of actions are on par with growing third-party support and loosened copyright terms for content creators.
For those of you who may be in the dark, Nintendo has a pretty extensive history of making great games and terrible business moves. In terms of business, they often isolated themselves by focusing mainly on exclusives, taking revenue from streamers and YouTubers who produced playthroughs of their content, avoiding other big companies like Microsoft and Sony, and being unwavering in these practices. The past two years, however, have been magical for Nintendo and their fans. They’re embracing more of the gaming industry as opposed to just the Nintendo industry. These changes have made Nintendo a more desirable company in the eyes of gamer, especially gamers aboard Southwest flights Wednesday.
They just gave every person on board a free Nintendo Switch and Super Mario Maker 2!!! #SouthwestxNintendo pic.twitter.com/BUPY3IdTOS
— Nicholas Friedman @ SDCC (@NMFreed) July 17, 2019
This is just one of many moves by Nintendo recently. Their flooding the news with the Nintendo Switch Lite, Luigi’s Mansion 3, and now airline partnerships. We’ll be keeping our ears perked up for more Nintendo news over the coming weeks and months, and we suggest you do the same. We still could hear a little something on the “Nintendo Switch Pro” as it’s being deemed.
Brandon is a young writer who loves going deep into games to explore meaning, purpose, and life. He believes that there’s nothing better than getting lost in a world full of characters to love and lessons to learn. He has a special place in his heart for single player games such as Mass Effect and Life Is Strange, but he also blows off some steam playing some of his favorite multiplayer games, like Paladins.
If you want to know how Nintendo is able to do this then look at how all their old games are still the same price as the new ones and how with Nintendo DS – 3DS XL & Wii/Wii U varieties if your console got broken or stolen you had to rebuy every game over again because they were locked to the console instead of a cloud based system, which means they have and still are gaining excess money because those consoles are still around in today’s gaming era.